Both admired and feared, J Edgar Hoover (Leo DiCaprio) was a cross-dressing momma’s boy who put the FBI on the map to become one of the most powerful men in history. Stopping at nothing to protect his country, he held his position for more than fifty years and through eight Presidencies.
The film opens in 1934 on John Dillinger’s death mask, and then rises to the face of Hoover as an old man. Immediately the audience is taken aback from the bad makeup job that starts with an elderly DiCaprio and then to his old secretary, Helen (Naomi Watts) who spends most of her time in the movie opening and closing Hoover’s office door. The upside to Helen, though we don’t know it yet, is she will guard all of Hoover’s secrets until the end of his life. His other inner circle was one person, his colleague and lover, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) who also ages in flashbacks too, but his makeup looks like a burn victim belonging in another movie. You know Hammer the actor as an awards nominee in the role of the Winklevoss twins from last year’s Social Network.
But it’s Hoover’s mother (Judi Dench) who steals the show, as the one person who serves as Hoover’s inspiration, conscience and verbal spankings….In one scene she tells a small boy Hoover “You will rise to be the most powerful man in Hollywood.” Years later she tells him she’ll teach him to dance as she’d “rather have a dead son than a daffodil.” Dench pulls out a bit of her evil Notes on a Scandal performance.
The odd thing about this film is that it depicts Hoover being uncomfortable and unnatural in his own skin (and again, the skin looks pretty bad.) But one can’t tell if DiCaprio’s performance is deliberately stiff to emulate Hoover, or it’s just a really bad performance. At times DiCaprio sinks in and let’s go and those are the private scenes behind the scenes with his mother or Clyde.
The Lindbergh kidnapping seems to be the one criminal case that defines him, and emotionally destroys him, stopping at nothing to see justice served.
Clint Eastwood directs his annual attempt at Oscar but I think he missed the mark. Dustin Lance Black famous for writing Harvey Milk’s political and gay bio Milk seemed to miss his mark too. Though the message is clear….as a society we must learn from our history. Or is that Clint’s message? Two tiaras